Income Tax ‘hero’ visits Priyanka, Katrina

The Income Tax sleuths who carried out searches at the premises of Bollywood actors Priyanka Chopra and Katrina Kaif, were aided by ‘hero’, a small yellow suitcase which copied voluminous data from the actors’ computers.

The portable lab has now been sent to the I-T forensic laboratory here which is downloading the documents copied from the actors and will then print them.

"The hero has really lived to its expectations. The department is increasingly using it in high-value searches," I-T sources said.

Documents and data related to endorsements and investments were copied on to the portable forensic lab during the searches which will now be scrutinised, they said.

The I-T team that carried out the searches was also equipped with pre-wiped disks for imaging and cloning hard drives, portable labs for previewing computer hard disks, specially coated bags and tags to pack, label and transport the imaged and cloned data to its labs.

The ‘hero’ also has a technical name–Forensic Recovery of Evidence Device Diminutive Interrogation Unit (FREDDIE)– and was also used last year by the department while searching the premises of former IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi.

The investigative wing of the I-T department has started using these software platforms after taxpayers and evaders have increasingly started using high-end softwares like ‘logic bomb’ which deletes all files as soon as officials try to source information from the hardware.

TheI-T department has claimed to have found Rs 6 crore of unaccounted assets after the searches on Chopra, which the actor has described as "malicious rumours".(PTI)